David Yurman Jewelry: ‘This is an Art Project’

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David Yurman jewelry with the cable motif: a cuff with diamonds, a cable bracelet in 18-karat gold and a four-row ring with diamonds, in bronze and silver.CreditCreditPablo Enriquez for The New York Times

By Rachel Felder

Dec. 1, 2017

A few decades ago, while they were artists working in downtown Manhattan, Sybil and David Yurman decided to start their own jewelry brand. Their goals were decidedly humble.

“We didn’t come to it through, ‘Hey, let’s merchandise this. We’ll build a business and make a fortune,’ ” Ms. Yurman said. “We had no desire to build a business. Our desire was simply to create, to share it with each other and to be able to make more.

“To do that, we had to figure out how to sell it in order to have the money to make more, so that’s what we did.”

Mr. Yurman agreed: “This is an art project.” The couple sat in a homey room at their company’s TriBeCa headquarters, with several of Mr. Yurman’s sculptures on shelves nearby.

“Sybil and I came to this through art and craft — it was our livelihood,” he said. “We could paint houses, which we did, or we could transform sculpture into jewelry.”

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David Yurman and his wife, Sybil, at the company headquarters in Manhattan.CreditPablo Enriquez for The New York Times

That jewelry — tactile, refined but also a bit earthy, and bold without being overly loud or “fashiony” — has become a widely known brand.

There are 33 free-standing David Yurman boutiques in America, on swanky streets such as Rodeo Drive, Madison Avenue and Michigan Avenue; it is sold at department stores such as Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom and Bloomingdales, and internationally at Printemps and Galeries Lafayette in France and TSUM in Russia.

Over the years, the company has built a very loyal clientele that Mr. Yurman calls “Yurmanites.” At a recent appearance at the Chicago store, for example, around 400 of them showed up to meet Mr. Yurman, most wanting to pose with him for selfies.

The brand’s boutiques are welcoming, with an accessibility that has resonated with fans who might find some other high-end jewelers intimidating. (Privately owned, the company does not disclose sales or revenue figures.)

The Yurmans, both 74, met in 1968 as studio managers for the sculptor Hans Van de Bovenkamp. They quickly became a couple; by late 1969 they had decided to start a jewelry business, funded with $500 that Mr. Yurman borrowed without interest from the Hebrew Free Loan Society, a New York-based aid organization.

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The David Yurman archive room.CreditPablo Enriquez for The New York Times

The initial pieces were essentially wearable versions of Mr. Yurman’s sculptures, crafted in bronze using a technique called the direct welding process that gave them a fluid and substantial feel. The couple’s first notable sale was a chunky choker, purchased right off Ms. Yurman’s neck by a gallery owner who admired it.

Under the name Putnam Art Works, the jewelry was sold at galleries and craft shows. “It was tiring,” Mr. Yurman said. “I did 30 to 50 craft fairs a year. It got old after a while because you had to pack up your stuff and go up to Stowe, Vermont, or wherever it was, and sometimes it would be raining and it would be outside.”

In 1980, the couple reassessed the business and introduced the David Yurman brand, to be sold at boutiques and department stores. In 1983, the piece that has become the company’s trademark was introduced — a knotted cable shaped into a sturdy silver bracelet, at once precious and casual, confident but not showy and appealing to a wide demographic.

“The cable bracelet didn’t really look like anything else,” said Virginia Smith, the fashion market and accessories director at Vogue. “It was very unique, and that has been one of the reasons they’ve been successful for so long — this unwavering point of view. To have that sort of clarity is very powerful.”

The cable motif still abounds in the collection: There are silver bracelets punctuated by balls of lapis lazuli and malachite, and an 18-karat bangle with diamonds. It is used as a band for a ring anchored with a large citrine or amethyst, or a silver circle dangling in a cluster on a pendant.

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David Yurman pieces made with forged carbon and gold: an ingot tag, a pair of cufflinks and a ring.CreditPablo Enriquez for The New York Times

For men, it is the basis of boxy signet rings and bracelets. It is also the focus of the book “David Yurman: Cable,” published in October by Rizzoli.

The price range of items with the cable motif is wide. There is a thick cabled cuff with diamonds that’s $32,000, a selection of gold bracelets around $4,000 each, and plenty of options at much less than $500, like little hoop earrings for $275 and a sterling silver bangle punctuated with a few small diamonds for $395.

But the brand has grown to include much more than just cable-detailed items. There are, for example, gold pendants shaped like multidimensional stars in several sizes and covered in pavé diamonds. Dangling from a tiny chain, they are more delicate than might be expected from the brand. There are also sturdy men’s items with a different feel than the cable pieces, including rings that look like weathered pirate’s treasure and rubber bracelets detailed with black forged carbon.

Wedding items, including engagement rings and commitment bands, were introduced in 2006; for the last couple of years, there has also been high-end jewelry, with items that retail for as much as $1 million, such as a wide white gold cuff decorated with a flowerlike pattern of diamonds totaling nearly 20 carats.

“They have a very loyal clientele who loves the brand’s aesthetic, but at the same time they continually offer newness that attracts new clients,” said Erica Foland, a vice president and the divisional merchandise manager of designer jewelry at Neiman Marcus.

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David Yurman’s “Sundancer” sculpture and “Petals” necklace, both from the 1970s.CreditPablo Enriquez for The New York Times

The company is based in a sleek Manhattan building, on a quiet side street near the entrance to the Holland Tunnel. The Yurmans have lived nearby for about 40 years, since the neighborhood was filled with artists’ lofts instead of family-friendly condominiums.

In one part of their headquarters, about 50 jewelry makers work with machinery, on computers and by hand; another area holds an archive of approximately 9,000 jewelry pieces, along with assorted ephemera.

The couple continues to work on art, some of which is created in two studio spaces in a building in the same neighborhood. Mr. Yurman sketches every day in a small Moleskine notebook that he carries in his chest pocket, or, in a pinch, on a paper plate or sheet of hotel stationery. And his sculptures and Ms. Yurman’s paintings decorate some of the company boutiques.

Still, the Yurmans have always had a sense of focused industry alongside their artistic leanings. In the early days of their jewelry business Ms. Yurman created a list of requirements for stores that sold the brand. At a time when jewelry was merchandised by item type or stone, it required retailers to display the Yurman items together, with the brand’s name. That bold move helped market the company. “It was our constitution,” Ms. Yurman said.

While the company bears only Mr. Yurman’s name, Ms. Yurman has had a vast role in its growth. “My mother is a curator,” said the couple’s son, Evan Yurman, who has been the chief creative officer since 2013. “She’s an editor, she’s a stylist, she’s instigator. She’s really a merchant.

“She processes information about the business of the jewelry, and sales, and customers,” he said. “My father is very much high-level business orientated, but is really an artist at heart.”

There is, with three Yurmans working together, the noticeable feel of a family business. “You cannot imagine how essential that is,” David Yurman said. “The reality of this company is that it’s family.”